“China sees the game as mostly over, with a few odds and ends remaining that it can weather with little discomfort……

As the Dalai Lama ages, Beijing also thinks it has time on its side. It is almost certainly planning to engineer the Dalai Lama’s succession, to raise a young leader more favorably inclined toward its rule, and promote him over any rival chosen by the exile community.

But the Dalai Lama irritated China recently by suggesting that he might not reincarnate.

Officials from the avowedly atheist Communist Party responded by accusing the Dalai Lama of betraying his religion, and insisting that the party itself, not the Dalai Lama, would decide whether he would be reborn.”